Tag Archives: Jay Cook
Seventy smokin’ years: Ted Peters’ unlikely fish tale
Pasadena Avenue was just two narrow, unpaved lanes when Ted Peters bought a single acre of mangroves and sand in 1950. There was no retail in the scrubby, salty wilderness, no professional buildings, no apartments, no condo towers. You could cast a line right into the water across the road. Peters had to build a seawall, and backfill the rear of his property, to keep Boca Ciega Bay out. Ted Peters Famous Smoked Fish is still there, on the same land 
and in the same brown open-air wooden building Ted built with his half-brother and business partner Elry Lathrop, for their hard-earned and saved-up $15,000. Mike Lathrop, Elry’s son, now operates Ted Peters along with Jay Cook, Ted’s grandson. During the busy season, they go through around 2,000 pounds of fish per week. >click to read< 15:29
